Couple weeks ago I found out that one of my paintings, Fiesta, has won a 1st place award in the Annual Art Competition held by the Artists Magazine. My entry was in Abstract/Experimental category, Student division. The image of my painting will be published in the December 2019 edition of the magazine.
I have submitted my entry into this competition back in February, very close to the deadline. Obviously, I wanted a shot at being recognized and that’s why I have entered, but have not thought about it hardly at all after I hit the submit button. Nicholas Wilton, an artist I greatly admire, have taken a workshop with, I am also a member of his Life2Art academy, recommends for artists to practice rejection. We, artists, invest so much of ourselves into our art and it does hurt when the recognition is not as forthcoming as we would like it to be. But rejection is part of any artist’s life and it is important to develop a thicker skin to it. Entering competitions, applying for shows, seeking gallery representation are ways of getting our work into the world but it’s important to remember that any rejection is just an opinion of one (or a few) person on a particular day about the work we put in front of them. It’s not objective by any means and is not a judgement on all our work or our artistic potential. Following this advice I kept entering competitions here and there, trying to stay cool when the results where in and my name was not on the list. And then, voila, I have a winner!
When I received the e-mail about this award, I was on Palma de Mallorca island in Spain taking a painting workshop with the above mentioned Nicholas Wilton. It was extra special to be able to share the great news with my fellow artists. And, yes, I shed some tears of happiness.
Here is an image of the winning artwork. This piece is sold, the new owners were very kind and let me borrow it to take some additional high quality photographs of it.
Fiesta, 30x30 inches, mixed media on cradled wood panel, 2018